• Parties involved: China’s Service Providers; the European Union Parliament; Google; Reporters Without Borders organization
  • Source of conflict: The EU sees China’s censorship of large websites such as YouTube as a trade barrier, hurting their ability to fully benefit from producing internationally-available information
  • Timeline: Google pressures US government to battle censorship June 2007, EU Proposal March 2008
  • Court’s decision: No political or court action yet taken, EU proposal awaiting approval
  • Impact on blogosphere: Users in China are posting complaints, criticisms, and sharing means of bypassing the filters. American and European bloggers generally agree with the principles of the proposal but worry about the details or the ramifications. They also feel ambivalent about Google, saying it has indirectly supported China’s censorship policies by allowing Google’s services in China to adhere to Chinese internet policies.

Oliver Luft of Journalism.co.uk, a special interest site for journalists, relays a report on global press freedom, with a focus on the upcoming Olympics in Beijing:

The Reporters Without Boarders [sic] annual report on the state of press freedom across the globe claimed that prior to the 17th Chinese Communist Party Congress, last October, authorities began bringing liberal media to heel and closing thousands of websites, blogs and discussion forums.

The report claimed that other regimes keen to limit the powers of the press were also focusing on disrupting digital capture and publication of news. [. . .] “The new video-sharing and social networking internet websites are also victims of the censors, especially in Syria, Egypt and even Brazil.”

Blogging and social networking sites allow multiple users to engage in sharing of news material, making it harder for censorship-minded agencies to identify the original perpetrator or apprehend all offenders. While blogging is a relative safe realm compared to actual journalism for dissent, governmental filtering policies and cooperation with key websites are making this increasingly difficult and risky.

A February 2008 New York Times article on China’s so-called “Great Firewall” describes how China’s firewalls are blocking an alarmingly increasing number of sites, even those that do not necessarily have political content. Nevertheless, many bloggers post means for overcoming the restrictions on their websites, and some have even filed suit against ISPs. The country is under increased scrutiny because of the upcoming Olympics, and must balance their policies to avoid both unwanted publicity from a too-lax policy and backlash from a too-strict policy.

In June 2007, Google asked the U.S. government to consider Internet censorship in other countries as a trade barrier, presumably because as a business, they have considerably less political pressuring power. Google’s public policy blog says that they are “not interested in forcing the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment on other countries. Rather, we’re seeking to ensure that our information-based industry can thrive and flourish in all corners of the world”.

And recently–in March 2008–the European Union took the desired action that Google proposed:

The European Parliament has passed a proposal (571 in favor, 38 against) to treat Internet censorship by national governments as a trade barrier. If the proposal is approved, the EU will have to take measures against countries such as China and Cuba.

Many groups within the E.U. are sensitive to this issue and share the same goals, such as the German pirate party.